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Inside the LA Times
"We are a media platform and not just a newspaper."
That's how Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong summed up the "cultural vision" that he shares with his new editor Kevin Merida.
A "media platform" for what? Maybe poetry and comedy, maybe block parties and DJ battles, Merida said: If we can be "central to your lives," then "we can become irresistible."
The two men sat down with me for their first joint interview since Merida was poached from ESPN's The Undefeated to run the Times newsroom. Merida has only been on the job for a few weeks, and hasn't moved to L.A. yet. He seems to be in a meet-and-greet mode as he gets to know the organization. But he and Soon-Shiong clearly share a sense of what they need to do. "The opportunity," Merida said, is "to really redefine the modern American newspaper."
Adding to the journalism
The LAT's journalism is "foundational," Merida told me. "We will continue to produce that great journalism – we have some of the greatest journalists in the world – but... there's a broader kind of ecosystem of content you can wrap around the journalism. And compete for people who would not have thought about the LA Times before." That's when my ears perked up – when Merida talked about live events, audio projects, and bringing in "comedy and poetry and music."
"When you bring all of this together," he said, "then you widen your ability to attract audiences."
Our entire conversation is live on the "Reliable Sources" podcast. I remarked that news outlets are thinking more and more like Netflix – coming up with reasons for people to get subscribed and stay subscribed – and that's very much what is on the minds of the Times leaders.
"There's lots of ways to reach people," Merida said, citing both coverage of the drought out West and possible expansions of live events. "Maybe there are great battles of DJ's we can host," he said. "We already have a great book festival."
Soon-Shiong said he had a "mind meld" with Merida about this vision and noted that he has been spending money on publishing systems, studios, and live event spaces for the brand. "The infrastructure is now in place," he said. Now, Merida added, it's time to "widen the aperture on what we produce and create, but also widen who consumes us."
"Doubling down"
All of this talk, of course, led me to question Soon-Shiong's commitment to the cause. The biotech billionaire acquired the LA Times three years ago. The WSJ reported in February that he was "exploring a sale of the Los Angeles Times." He immediately denied it -- but I asked him -- has he had any regrets about his purchase?
"None whatsoever," he said. "In fact, quite the opposite." He spoke about various LAT investments and said he sees the publication in a competition for "engagement."
"What we are building, in a sense, is an engagement engine with true journalistic skills," he said. "So you get news and you get engagement, you get information, you get entertainment." Speaking of his family's commitment to the publication, he said "we are doubling down on this organization."
Okay -- but the WSJ said he has "grown dissatisfied with the news organization's slow expansion of its digital audience and its substantial losses." Is any of that true?
"Well, I've grown dissatisfied with the rate of change," he said. "I recognize you have losses. Having said that, the rate of change now is now escalating." He said the Times now has 400,000 digital subscribers, "and soon, hopefully a million." Then he hinted at a much bigger goal: "There's 40 million people in California alone, and there's no reason why we can't get 1 in 10." He also blasted Google and Facebook and urged Congress to change the bargaining rules so that news outlets can work together to strike deals with Big Tech.
>> When I asked what year Soon-Shiong is targeting profitability, I heard a sigh. He said, "It's a long haul. This is a marathon for all of us. I've not looked at it that way. As soon as we can, obviously, the better. But more importantly, we need to make investments, and we're making investments now."
Who is the LA Times for?
Is it the California paper of record? "Well, the goal is much more than that," Soon-Shiong said. He said the publication has a "California viewpoint," given its home base, but "we have the ability" to extend nationally and globally, "especially to Asia, Mexico, Canada."
Merida put it this way: "We're competing for subscriptions" just like HBO Max. "I want to be the most exciting, innovative media company that exists anchored out in California, which is a country unto itself. And when you're anchored there, you're doing really innovative, creative things, you can not only get subscriptions from California, but other places."
I also inquired about the paper's reckoning on race; Soon-Shiong's decision to stay on the sidelines while Alden Global Capital took over Tribune; and more. Tune in to the entire conversation via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, or your favorite app... FOR THE RECORD, PART ONE -- Two competing headlines across the top of Friday's WaPo: "Scores missing in Fla. condo collapse" and, for a story about an infrastructure spending deal, "Biden claims victory on deal..." (WaPo)
-- Edmund Lee with the lead of the day: "An hour into our interview, the artist David Choe admits that he lied about something..." (NYT)
-- Michael Warren writes: Mike Pence rebuked Donald Trump Thursday night "on the question of overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election. Pence also said he will 'always be proud' of his role in affirming the election results on January 6..." (CNN)
-- WaPo is out with a new adaptation from Damian Paletta and Yasmeen Abutaleb's book "Nightmare Scenario," about Trump becoming "terribly ill" with Covid, and detailing what happened next... (WaPo) "Gut-wrenching"
The snippets of quotes on the Miami Herald homepage tell the terrible story: "I could hear people crying." "The apartments were gone." "This is a gut-wrenching scene." "You don't see buildings falling down in America." But on Thursday, we did. The condo collapse in Surfside, Florida was one of the rare stories that really stunned everyone:  Anchoring from Surfside
Lester Holt of NBC and Norah O'Donnell of CBS anchored their nightly newscasts from Surfside on Thursday. David Muir of ABC remained in New York, which made for quite a contrast on TV. On CNN, Chris Cuomo will be anchoring from Surfside throughout the day on Friday... FRIDAY PLANNER President Biden delivers remarks to commemorate Pride Month...
VP Kamala Harris travels to El Paso for the border visit that Fox and other right-wing outlets have been demanding for weeks...
Derek Chauvin faces sentencing...
Season two of "Central Park" debuts on Apple TV+...
"F9: The Fast Saga" speeds into theaters. Scroll down for Brian Lowry's review... The first charges for assaulting media on 1/6
The DOJ has charged a US Capitol riot suspect, Shane Jason Woods, "with assaulting a cameraman during the January 6 attack, saying the Illinois man is the first insurrection defendant to be arrested for allegedly harming a member of the media," CNN's Devan Cole reports. Along with allegedly tripping and pushing a US Capitol Police officer, Woods also allegedly "ran into and tackled" a cameraman outside the Capitol, according to court filings. More here...
Hey Tucker, you are White rage
ICYMI, Milley's quote from that hearing went viral: "I want to understand White rage. And I'm White. And I want to understand it. What is it that caused thousands of people to assault this building and try to overturn the Constitution... What caused that? I want to find that out."
Carlson freaked out about that. He called Milley "obsequious" and implied the Joint Chiefs Chair was just reading a script. "Notice he never defined White rage," Carlson said. "And we should know what it is. What is White rage?"
You are White rage, Tucker. You are. (And you already know that.)
>> Of course, the key context for Thursday night's segment is this CNN story about Michael Bender's forthcoming book "Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost." The headline: Milley "rejected Trump suggestions military should 'crack skulls' during protests last year, new book claims..." OAN host defends talk of executing "radical Democrats"
Oliver Darcy writes: "One America News host Pearson Sharp is defending a segment in which he openly mused about thousands of 'radical Democrats' being executed for supposedly stealing the election from Trump. In the words of The Daily Beast: 'OAN Goes Full Fascist.' Sharp said in the segment that the consequence for 'dealing with such traitors' has been 'execution' in the past. After the clip of Pearson received attention, TPM's Matt Shuham reached out to Pearson. Pearson replied via email that he himself was not calling for executions. 'Neither I, nor OAN, are suggesting anyone should be executed,' Sharp told Shuham. 'That is for the appropriate law enforcement agencies to determine...'"
>> Darcy adds: "The whole episode shows how comfortable with violence some parts of the right has become. It cannot be stressed enough that if you frequent certain outlets, Democrats have been dehumanized and portrayed as traitorous monsters. And, for some, the way to deal with such treasonous individuals is through violence, as Pearson suggested on OAN..." FOR THE RECORD, PART TWO -- The final Peabody winners of 2021 were unveiled on Thursday. PBS "NewsHour" was the only recipient specifically for news coverage of the pandemic... (Deadline)
-- "Advertising company Omnicom is requiring vaccinations for US employees returning to the office..." (Insider)
-- First they reopened Madison Square Garden, and now the Foo Fighters are going to reopen the Forum in Inglewood in July... (LAT)
-- "Selfies on the ropeline are back, nature is healing," CNN's DJ Judd reported from Biden's get-vaccinated event in Raleigh on Thursday. "Rope lines are one of Biden's favorite things," Edward-Isaac Dovere tweeted. "COVID has kept him from doing one since last March..." (Twitter)  "A sad day for media freedom"
Biden expressed regret about the Chinese crackdown that forced Hong Kong's largest pro-democracy newspaper, Apple Daily, to cease publication on Thursday. In a statement, he called it "a sad day for media freedom in Hong Kong and around the world," adding, "Beijing must stop targeting the independent press and release the journalists and media executives that have been detained." Reuters has more here: "The shutdown deals the most serious blow yet to Hong Kong's media freedoms and could potentially destroy the city's reputation as a media hub after Beijing imposed the security law on the financial center last year, media advocacy groups say..."
>> Via SCMP: "Next Digital says 1 million copies of final edition were printed, but some readers complain they still could not get one..."
>> Here's what I said to the Foreign Correspondents Club in Hong Kong on Thursday: Nothing unites journalists more than a threat against our colleagues... So we are all paying close attention to what has happened with Apple Daily... FOR THE RECORD, PART THREE -- Jeremy Barr's latest is about Fox's sudden obsession with critical race theory. "The concept, which has been around for decades, has been mentioned nearly 2,000 times on the network this year," Barr reports... (WaPo)
-- On a very-much-related note, "a Virginia school district is under fire after chaos erupted during public comment at a school board meeting earlier this week over a proposed transgender policy and claims that critical race theory is being taught in the classroom..." (CNN)
-- Early plug for this Sunday's edition of "Reliable Sources:" Nikole Hannah-Jones will join me...
-- "Far-right internet personality Steven Crowder has been banned from TikTok following a June 8 Media Matters report highlighting his bigotry on the platform..." (MMFA)
-- "A civil rights lawsuit brought against the St. Charles County Regional SWAT team by three Al Jazeera America journalists who were tear-gassed during the Ferguson protests of 2014 has been settled for $280,000..." (Star) "Minnesota weighs more cameras in courts after Chauvin case"
Under an order released Thursday, "Minnesota's court system could allow expanded camera coverage of criminal proceedings," The AP's Steve Karnowski reported. "The order doesn't specifically cite Derek Chauvin's trial, but it was Minnesota's first criminal case in which gavel-to-gavel TV coverage was allowed, from jury selection through the verdict. Chauvin's sentencing Friday will also be televised." FOR THE RECORD, PART FOUR -- The Judiciary Committee has advanced six bills "aimed at weakening Big Tech" to the House floor. Brian Fung says the bills "would represent the most significant change to US antitrust law in decades..." (CNN Business)
-- Google has delayed its timeline to end third-party cookies in Chrome from January 2022 until late 2023. Kate Kaye explains why... (Digiday)
-- "After repeatedly promising not to, Facebook keeps recommending political groups to its users," Corin Faife and Alfred Ng report... (The Markup)
-- Eileen Guo writes about how YouTube rules "are used to silence human rights activists..." (MIT Tech Review)
-- Yashraj Sharma goes "inside the Islamophobic Clubhouse rooms Modi's men visit..." (Vice) OMG. BuzzFeed's going public
Kerry Flynn writes: "BuzzFeed announced its highly anticipated SPAC on Thursday. The company is merging with 890 5th Avenue Partners, and the estimated valuation is $1.5 billion, which misses the mark of BuzzFeed's 2016 valuation of $1.7 billion. As part of the deal, BuzzFeed is acquiring Complex Networks. The hope is the SPAC provides enough cash to further invest in and grow the business. At an in-person presser at BuzzFeed's NYC office, Jonah Peretti said, 'We'll have opportunities to pursue more acquisitions — and there are more exciting companies out there that we want to pursue.' But TBD what those are. Meanwhile, the rest of the media industry will be watching how this deal plays out as they consider their own SPACs. As CNBC's Alex Sherman wrote, 'For more than a decade, BuzzFeed has competed against other digital media companies for consumer attention. Now, the rest of the industry is praying for its success...'"
>> Peter Kafka tweeted: "BuzzFeed competitors I've talked to are torn between relief that there's finally a digital publisher going public and grousing that the price is too low..." FOR THE RECORD, PART FIVE By Kerry Flynn:
-- Amazon Music is acquiring Art19, a podcast hosting and monetization platform, Ashley Carman writes... (The Verge)
-- Graeme McMillan investigates Substack's foray into comic books including the hiring of Nick Spencer... (Inverse)
-- "While a reckoning over race, gender and sexuality has changed what's covered and how, the discussion around the language and use of terminology related to mental health appears to be lagging," Dave Cantor writes... (Poynter)
-- Angus Macaulay was promoted to COO at STAT News. He previously served as CRO... Mumford & Sons banjoist quits over Andy Ngo controversy
Oliver Darcy writes: "Winston Marshall, the Mumford & Sons banjoist, announced Thursday in a Medium post that he had quit the band following a controversy that occurred after he praised right-wing activist Andy Ngo. Marshall lauded Ngo in March for writing what he described as an 'important book' and for being a 'brave man.' After praising Ngo, Marshall faced a swift stream of controversy, apologized, and said he'd take time off to 'examine my blindspots.' Now he says he's quitting the band so that he can 'speak my mind' without the band 'suffering the consequences...'"
>> Darcy adds: "Marshall's Medium post is actually a window into someone who has been manipulated by dishonest media, but does not know it. He appears to think he sparked controversy for simply 'commenting on a book critical of the Far-Left.' But that was clearly not the case. It reminds me of how some people say they read an outlet like Breitbart for the 'conservative view' and an outlet like NYT for the 'liberal view' — as if they're both opposite sides of the same coin. Navigating the media environment in 2021 requires understanding the Information Wars. And it's clear so many do not..." FOR THE RECORD, PART SIX -- Ryan Mac "is joining The Times from BuzzFeed to cover tech accountability..." (NYT)
-- Susan Page is working on a biography of Barbara Walters, as Mike Allen revealed on Thursday. Simon & Schuster says the book is expected in 2023... (Axios)
 Why did NBC renew "The Blacklist?"
Brian Lowry writes: "As if to underscore my appraisal of 'The Blacklist' season finale – which concluded that the long-running drama is living on borrowed time after the departure of Megan Boone – series creator Jon Bokenkamp announced Thursday that he's leaving the series as well. All of which raises the question what exactly did NBC renew for a ninth season?" FOR THE RECORD, PART SEVEN -- The birth of a big new franchise? "Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire is moving forward at AMC," and the network "plans to build a multiple-show universe as part of the Rice deal..." (THR)
-- "The premiere episode of the 'Gossip Girl' reboot will air on The CW after it debuts on HBO Max..." (Variety)
-- "Netflix's Lucifer finished as the top draw in the U.S. for the week of May 24 to 30, according to Nielsen..." (Deadline)  Spinning its wheels
Brian Lowry writes: "'F9: The Fast Saga' might be the kind of movie to lure wary movie-goers back into theaters after some fits and starts in that department. Creatively speaking, though, the ninth film in this now-20-year-old franchise mostly feels like it's just spinning its wheels. Even allowing for the goofy nature of the franchise, the latest edition tries too hard to up the ante, which won't stop Universal from revving up 'F:X' (or some equally clever title) as soon as possible." Read Lowry's full assessment here... Conan's long, strange late-night journey comes to a close
Brian Lowry writes: "As someone who has watched Conan O'Brien's career since he was an unknown comedy writer who landed the gig replacing David Letterman, it's remarkable to see him wrap up this portion of his TV career 28 years later. O'Brien might not be doing so at the network where he hoped to be, but the history of late-night succession battles is that you can never keep two people who each want to host 'The Tonight Show,' and both usually make out fine when all's said and done." Read on...
>> For a complete recap of Thursday's episode, check out Frank Pallotta's article, which was just published at the time I'm hitting send...
>> For more, here's Bill Carter, fresh off "The Story of Late Night," praising Conan's brilliance and inventiveness. "The levels of comic absurdity Conan reached from his three different late-night shows are like nothing else ever created for television," Carter writes. "That's what really matters about his career as a late-night star. He was always ambitious, always trying to lift his show and the late-night genre to a more creative, imaginative, funnier level. He leaves behind no doubt: He accomplished all of that." SAVING THE BEST FOR LAST...
Pet of the day
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